Measure H proponents are dishing out the melarkey – don’t bite

26 Aug

Well, I been busy, and I won’t say on what, cause I want it to be a surprise.

In the meantime, the city of Chico has been busy working to pass their tax measure – Measure H, for “you’ve got to be kidding“. Looks like the Enterprise Record has already decided they will endorse it – seems like the reporter just copied the city press release, no questions. And I’ll say, I think they know damned well there’s opposition, and it would have been, well, real journalism to get ahold of me, or Dave Howell, or Joe Azzarito, and ask for a different take on the measure. Wolcott just contacted me recently about the last letter I sent, but never asked me to talk to the reporter.

The story reads almost right out of the city’s slick mailer. I don’t have a subscription, so I couldn’t cut-and-paste it, but I typed out a few choice quotes.

The reporter claims Measure H “will generate approximately $24 million a year for use in the city’s General Fund.” That just doesn’t add up – how does a penny add up to that much? Walk with me, bring your calculator. Or just add two zeros to $24,000,000. Yep, that’s right, Chico voters would have to spend $2,400,000,000 – two billion, four hundred million – at least that much a year on taxable goods in order to achieve that extra $24 million. And, given those figures, our current sales tax revenue would be closer to $180 million, not the $28 million projected in the budget. I hate math, but I’ve gone over these figures with math weirdos, and that’s what it adds up to, a pile of BS. In fact, in their Argument in Favor, proponents admit the revenues will not even add up to enough to complete the needed road repairs, they say they’ll use them to secure grants. (more on that later).

Let’s talk about the other claims – this next paragraph sounds like city staffers or the tax measure consultant wrote it:

“may be used for any Gen fund purposes including but not limited to maintenance and repairs on street pavement, storm drains, sidewalks and pot holes; maintain 911 emergency response times; reserving the number of on-duty firefighters and police; maintaining Bidwell park and other neighborhood parks, and funding other general services.“

These are the claims they can’t make because H is a general or simple measure, requiring only 50% of participating voters + 1 more vote. So they leave it to their local newspaper, along with the contract for all their public notices. And, while Junior Reporter mentions the General Fund, he has pointedly left the pension deficit out of the whole conversation. In the next paragraph, he actually adds dollar figures – this is a veiled attempt at making the voters believe this money will really go toward solving various problems created by years of deferred maintenance and a calculated elimination of services.

“Broken down, the top 5 estimated costs are: $542 million for capital projects; $105 million for the police department; $46 million for public works administration and parks; $36 million for Chico municipal airport, and $33 million for the fire department.”

Nowhere does this story mention what interim city manager Paul Hahn and various consultants have acknowledged as our biggest financial challenge – the Unfunded Actuarial Liability, commonly known as the pension deficit.

As I feared, the city is running a sub-par campaign full of total crap. What can we do to push back? Write letters to the ER – make sure Wolcott has to devote at least an equal amount of ink to the NO ON H campaign. Tell your friends, yak it up on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.

I tried to join a conversation about H on one council candidate’s Facebook, but I don’t have Facebook. The candidate claimed they were disappointed that the measure wasn’t restricted, but that we need the money and it should pass. When other posters said they didn’t want a general measure, it all disappeared. That’s too bad, this is a conversation that needs to be had.

Another claim the proponents make is that this tax can be “removed” by the voters. That is a patent lie – unless you think it’s easy to gather enough signatures to put it back on the ballot. Instead, just Vote NO, ask your neighbors to do same. This tax would be permanent, and I’ll say, just the foot in the door for more increases in future.

NOTE: I had to edit this because that candidate contacted me on my husband’s cell phone and told me I was spreading misinformation, but the above is what I saw on the Facebook before it disappeared. Here’s a note – don’t contact me via my husband’s phone, I consider that bullying. If you have a comment about the blog, comment on the blog.

NOTE NOTE: I redid my research – yes, everything I said about this candidate was true. Later, when I texted her to ask that she didn’t contact me at that number again, she responded to me again and admitted to me that she worked for the public sector, and she was a member of the union. As such she would also be a member of one or another public pension system. If she wants to straighten any “misinformation” I’ve received, she needs to come to the blog.

City’s sudden attention to infrastructure improvement is just part of the tax measure campaign – don’t be fooled, it won’t last beyond November 8

16 Aug

My husband and I use the Mangrove/Pine-Cedar/Mulberry/Fair Street corridor often, most of the businesses we patronize are in the south end of town. For years I’ve watched those streets deteriorate, potholes growing larger, sidewalks and curbstones crumbling. While the city used RDA money to put streets, drainage, and sidewalks in new subdivisions, they deferred maintenance on older streets in historic neighborhoods in favor of paying millions toward their pension deficit.

I don’t know if you’ve ever crossed that bridge over Little Chico Creek there where Mulberry splits into Cedar and Pine, but I’ve looked at it dozens and dozens of times, and the guard rail is falling off in places. It’s been falling off for yeeeeeaaaars.

Recently we were headed over to the lumber yard when we drove into a jobsite at that same intersection. Boy howdy, they are tearing up the streets, got traffic cones directing everybody like an amusement park entrance. Spray painted symbols all over the pavement, the sidewalks, gutters and curbs. It’s obvious the pavement is eons old, like, older than me even.

A few years ago I attended a few installments of a series of “informational talks” former asst city manager Chris Constantin was giving, speaking to each city commission about the infrastructural needs of our city, roads, sewer, etc. He said road maintenance had been deferred for years, and duh, anybody who has lived in Chico for more than five years would tell you that. Constantin also reported that it would take 100’s of millions and years to bring it all back to function.

Some of our infrastructure dates back to our grandparent’s time. And I’m 62, so I’m talking, many of your great grandparents’ time. For example, the Guynn Avenue bridge, which has been closed for a few years now because it is completely out of date, so narrow it won’t accommodate two way traffic, unless you’re driving a horse. From the city website:

https://chico.ca.us/post/guynn-avenue-bridge-replacement-project

 The bridge is located between East Avenue and West Lindo Avenue, near the western edge of the City limits. The existing one-lane bridge provides a vital link between the Cussick Area Neighborhood and The Avenues, as it is one of only two vehicular crossings of Lindo Channel between Esplanade and Nord Avenue. The existing bridge is an 86-foot long, single-span, steel Warren pony truss bridge. The bridge suffers from the following deficiencies:

  • The bridge has significantly reduced load carrying capacity and can no longer bear the weight as originally intended.
  • There is paint loss/cracking and rust on multiple steel members, including the main trusses of the bridge.
  • The northwest wingwall has cracked and is beginning to fail.
  • The bridge width does not meet current safety standards for cars and first responder vehicles.

The reason this bridge has not been replaced to date, despite the fact it is a “vital link” for the neighborhood, leaving only one other bridge crossing Lindo Channel between Esplanade and Nord Ave, creating longer drive times for neighbors and congestion at other crossings, is that the city did not have any money in their streets fund. Our streets fund. All the funds have been raided systematically for years, millions a year, to make the “side fund” or “extra” payments to CalPERS. So they had to wait for funding. According to the project timeline, they received funding in 2021, but they won’t begin construction until 2023?

I hear a lot at these meetings about the cost of asphalt, Constantin mentioned it in his briefings. I looked at something called the “Asphalt Price Index,” and what I did understand, is that the price of asphalt is linked to the price of oil, and yeah, it goes up every year. But there have been spike years, and yeah, those years seem to coincide with tax campaigns. During the 2018 campaign to get us to raise the gas tax (SB1), the price of asphalt went up wildly as CalTrans put their crews out on the road, fixing freeways and roads all over the state. Every jobsite had a sign saying, “Your SB 1 $$$ at work!”

According to the index, asphalt prices are spiking again, as of earlier this year. So the longer the city waits to do their projects, the more they defer maintenance, the more expensive it gets.

And like the state, Chico staff and council are campaigning for a tax increase. They’ve admittedly deferred street maintenance for years, and now, all the damned sudden, they’re tearing up streets around town, fixing sidewalks. And here’s another thing worth mention – they’re not doing it with city money, they’re doing it with state and federal grants, meaning, these jobs will take years.

Here’s the city wide project that includes the work I’ve seen on Mulberry – all these current projects are federally funded:

https://chico.ca.us/citywide-systemic-safety-improvement-project

Here’s a list of projects either underway or in planning

https://chico.ca.us/capital-projects

Notice, most of these projects are on hold, “in the design phase…” That’s not really true, the truth is, they don’t have funding. They have gutted the streets fund for years to pay down the pension deficit, so they have to wait for grants to become available, and compete with many other towns to get them. Also notice, the projects that are “under construction” are all funded with state or federal grants.

I don’t expect this sudden burst of attention to duty will last beyond the November election, regardless of the outcome of the election. Look at the record, look what has been a constant for years. We’ve been through “conservative” councils and “liberal” councils, and the only constant has been the paying down of the pensions with money siphoned out of all the funds at the expense of our infrastructure.

POST SCRIPT: I was re-reading the Butte County Grand Jury report for 2019-20, here’s an excerpt from the Chico report:

For fiscal year 2019/20, $2.5 million is budgeted for Capital Expenditures which includes road maintenance/repair. The Gas Tax Fund (Fund 307) funds road work/repairs. Fiscal year 2019/20 Fund 307 revenue is $4.8 million. 

I think that tells the story – $4.8 million in gas tax revenues, only $2.5 million budgeted for Capital Expenditures, including road maintenance. What we need, are more people asking where the rest of that gas tax money went.

Taxpayer Singalong! If you’re overtaxed and you don’t like it, JUST SAY NO!

14 Aug

Summer is winding down, and the urge to hibernate is strong. But Friday the county clerk posted her notice of measures coming up on the November ballot. I didn’t see it, so I don’t even know what letter designation the clerk gave the city of Chico sales tax increase measure. But I have had three people contact me to tell me they are ready to push back.

For now we’ll just call it, Tax Measure ?

Three people – that’s the magic number folks. See, one guy is crazy, two guys are [politically incorrect], but THREE GUYS is a MOVEMENT! (let me extend my sincere apologies to Arlo Guthrie).

Arlo says you can join the movement, if you just sing along. In this case, we need you to start writing those letters. Tell your friends. Sing it! Just say NO!

If you’re overtaxed and you don’t like it, JUST SAY NO!

Yesterday morning the tv pundits were all talking about inflation – food and energy prices are leading the charge, two commodities that most of us civilized taxpayers think of as necessities. If you’re sick of watching your grocery receipt and your PG&E and gas bills keep going up, SING ALONG!

If you’re feeling gouged and you don’t like it, JUST SAY NO!

Furthermore, you’re looking around yourself, your streets are trashed, your parks are trashed, there are encampments full of sex offenders along the trail your child takes to school – you want to know where is all the money going? SING ALONG!

If you’re sick of the excuses, and the questionable money uses, then you have to find your spine and JUST SAY NO!

A lady contacted me recently and asked me if I was going to do any “demonstrations”. People want to jump on a noisy bandwagon, wave signs, drive their cars around City Hall beeping their horns ($$$$$!), but I find those are mostly hot air and run out of gas pretty quickly. And sometimes people get to pushing and shoving and annoying little old ladies get butt-slammed by big jerk faces.

Here’s a gentle suggestion – sing this song for your council or your council representative. Tell them you’re going to vote NO on Tax Measure ?, cause you know what, as of today, there’s still THREE DAYS left on the election calendar for them to take this dud OFF THE BALLOT.

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Do you know somebody who wants to/is running for city council? Tell us about it!

4 Aug

Well, I got my first election mailer today – Chico Democrats. I don’t like mailers because they clog my mailbox and trash can, but they’re always interesting. It seems the Demos are calling out the council “conservatives” on various charges, from DUI’s to bad staffing decisions to lawsuits, it runs the gamut. It’s pretty poorly done, the kind of juvenile trash talk that I’m sure will make a lot of local Democrats cringe. But it’s the first smack in the mouth, and I think we can expect at least ten rounds this year.

“Conservative” Kasey Reynolds announced she will run for reelection, which was no surprise. I believe this “Quality of Life” measure she’s trying to get approved for the ballot tonight is the first salvo in her campaign. I think she was talked into this BS by her guru Rob Berry, and I’m sorry, it was poor judgement on her part. The people already have plenty of mechanisms to take their grievances to council, and the best one is, throw them out on their asses at election time.

This is the third strike for Old Kasey as far as I’m concerned. The first was her vote to approve the Shelter Crisis Designation in 2020. The second was the rental registration tax she was trying to push forward for the city. And now, Strike Three – she uses staff time to forward her campaign, not only to get herself re-elected, but to pass the tax measure. That’s corrupt. While I may feel forced to vote for her based on what rough beast slouches forward to take the district, I will certainly not endorse or support her. She hasn’t done anything I can get behind, she just keeps shoving the city farther down the Road to Perdition.

Here we are, another election, forced to choose the lesser of two evils. I have only lately found out what district I’m in, it was difficult given the maps they presented. At one point we found ourselves in Deepika Tandon’s District, but only recently they updated the maps and we are back in Reynold’s district – but all our neighbors are cut out, the line runs right down the street in front of our house and around the first corner. I can see why people scream “gerrymandering!”, the process looks pretty sketchy.

At this point the new districts are making it hard to figure out who’s running for what, and few candidates have come forward to give any information about their intentions. A local developer and frequent contributor to the letters section and various social media sites, Tom Vanoverbeek is running in District 6, on the southeast end of town. I have no idea who he’s running against. TV, as I’m going to call him, actually wanted the city to approve a Pension Obligation Bond, writing a letter to the paper about it, without ever mentioning that the constitution requires bonds to go on the ballot.

The City of Chico currently has a $147 Million unfunded pension liability to the CalPers retirement system for city employees that it is contractually obligated to pay. CalPers is currently charging the the city 7% annually on the $147M.  By restructuring this debt with a Pension Obligation Bond (POB) the city can satisfy this $147M debt at interest rate of 3.5% to 4% instead of 7% saving the city millions of dollars. A Pension Obligation Bond is NOT new debt, it is exchanging one form of debt for another at a much lower interest rate and is why over 30 other California cities such as  Riverside, Pasadena, Pomona and Grass Valley have issued POBs.

The CalPers system is a defined benefit program which means that the payout to employees at retirement is fixed. CalPers is funded by contributions from employees, employers (the city) and returns from the investments made by CalPers. The unfunded liability exists because CalPers has failed to meet its’ investment return goals, currently 7%. CalPers’ 20-year average rate of return is 5.5% compared to the S&P 500 index of 7.5%.  Under the agreement between CalPers and the city, the taxpayers, you and me, are on the hook for the $147M shortfall.

It was an appallingly bad decision for the City of Chico to join CalPers 20 years ago but that doesn’t change the reality that we owe them $147M.  Think of this like refinancing your home mortgage, if you can pay 3.5% why would you pay 7%?

TV uses the argument that tells me, he doesn’t really understand, he’s just repeating what the consultants said: “Think of this like refinancing your home mortgage, if you can pay 3.5% why would you pay 7%?” That is a child’s mis-understanding of pension bonds, and that’s the kind of judgment that’s already got us into the pot of doodoo we find ourselves.

I wish these people would take their job more seriously, and maybe read the California Constitution, read the city charter, but they depend way too much on staff. And then yeah, blame staff when the stuff hits the fan. I hope we see some serious, better informed candidates come forward, but it’s tough given the pot of money it takes to run these days. If you think you have a candidate that is worth supporting, tell us about it HERE.

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Contact council – there is still time for them to renege and pull that tax measure off the ballot

2 Aug

Yesterday I went to the grocery store and came home without two long-time staples from my shopping list – they were too expensive. I’ve watched prices go up all my life, but lately it’s been a little crazy.

I’ve been using Noxema since I was a child, it’s a good face wash, and it’s good for taking care of skin conditions like sunburn and chapping. Suddenly the price has jumped from about $3.50/jar to almost $5.00. Let’s do the math – $1.50 increase divided by the original price = 42% increase.

For Noxema?

Another item I’ve been buying for years is honey. I use it in my tea, it’s comforting. I used to buy it from a local distributor but switched to more generic brands as the price went up. I was paying $7.11 for a 32 oz bottle, and I was comfortable enough with that, even though it was starting to feel like a luxury. Yesterday the tag on the shelf said almost $11.

So I walked out of the store without two items I’ve been purchasing for years. Downsizing. I make my own skin scrub with coconut oil and sugar, I’ll just have to add some menthol oil – the key ingredient in Noxzema – and use that on my face. I already buy essential oils online for pennies per use.

We also noticed the price of our canned dogfood has gone up, again and again. Every time we buy it lately, it’s nudged up another dollar. He needs meat with his kibble, but I realized I was buying the commercial food for convenience. So, we bought a pack of chicken on sale at Raley’s and I cooked it up for him instead. I realize, now we know exactly what’s in his food, the canned stuff was always kind of a mystery. Chicken goes on sale regularly enough – and we eat it ourselves.

Like I say, I’ve watched prices go up all my life, but not usually like this. The last time I remember inflation like that was back in the early 2000’s – that’s when I stopped buying local honey, switched to generic crap brands from wherever. I had watched the local honey go up a couple of dollars over the last year, and I couldn’t see any rationale behind it. They try to tell us it’s “supply chain issues” – no it’s not, it’s gouging, and it’s permanent. We won’t see prices go down when the crisis is over – well, they’ll just manufacture another crisis anyway.

The other common thing I notice now – price of housing is going up like crazy. I remember that started happening in about 2003, and by 2008, we had foreclosure signs all over Chico. The city kept saying we needed more “starter” housing for young families, but the prices just kept going up. We all found out – it was the building industry that was demanding more housing, the unions.

That’s exactly what’s happening now – the trade unions are bitching for more building in California – they say we need “more affordable” housing, but that’s not what they’re producing.

Just making observations. The only answer I see is self-inflicted attrition. Cut your expenses, stop buying stuff you don’t need, become more self-reliant like Doug LaMalfa has been saying. And write to your city council to tell them you will not support the sales tax increase measure. There is still actually time for council to renege and pull that measure off the ballot.

Next time I’d like to go over recent budgets – the city has been forecasting doom and gloom, but our revenues are up steadily and there’s really no excuse for a tax measure.

Letter to the Editor: Patrick Newman claims our city is underfunded, I say it’s overspent

28 Jul

I saw Patrick Newman’s letter to the ER last week, the first part looked like a bitch-fight with Oroville taxpayer Steve Simpson, but I thought the last paragraph deserved an answer.

Newman opines, “Thoughts: 1) Chico police and fire are the only “fully funded” city departments – true since the beginning of Mark Orme’s tenure. 2) Like it or not, elected officials are tasked with spending money.  3) While I’m not convinced dumping more money into police and fire services will make us safer, I am aware that our underfunded city has a backlog of over $200 million in failing infrastructure – to include crumbling roads, a neglected sewage treatment plant, an under-maintained storm drain system, aging traffic signaling, etc.  4) There are flaws in any taxation scheme.  Chico can go on dithering, but the consequence will be exponentially more expensive infrastructure decline.“

Wow, Mr. Newman is a pretty astute observer of city business, but he always twists things around his way. How can he say a city with a $211 million budget, 80% of which goes to salaries and benefits, is underfunded? So I wrote a letter about it.

In response to Patrick Newman:

  1. Yes, Chico PD and FD are fully funded. Public safety gets over 75% of the General Fund – proof that you can’t solve a problem by throwing money at it.
  2. Elected officials are tasked with spending money, and the public is tasked with making sure they spend it wisely. This isn’t always the case, and that is a good argument for a 2/3’s measure with specified spending goals. Instead council approved a simple majority measure that goes into the General Fund to be spent without public approval. 21% of the General Fund goes into the pensions.
  3. Our city is not “underfunded”, budgeting $28,890,000 in sales tax revenues for 2022, along with $11.5 million in property tax, $9.2 million VLF in lieu (your car registration fees) and $8 million added to your PG&E and water bills in the form of Utility Users Tax. Furthermore, the $200 million in failing infrastructure is a result of years of admitted deferred maintenance, while staff poured increasing amounts into their pension deficit – last year $11.5 million, this year over $12 million, $18 million by 2025, and so on.
  4. The major flaw in the sales tax increase measure is that it is not dedicated to any specific purpose. While staff and council have insinuated it would go toward infrastructure and services, they can’t promise that. They can promise a $12.2 million “catch-up” payment to CalPERS this year.

This is a bad measure, Vote No.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

DCBA worried about “e-shopping”? They should join the community in opposing the sales tax measure

24 Jul

“It’s going to take the community support to keep the local businesses able to compete with some of the big internet stores that are out there,” says DCBA vice president David Halimi.

https://krcrtv.com/news/local/slice-of-chico-summer-celebration-ventures-to-keep-spending-local-against-e-shopping

Well, I’d be worried if I were Halimi, Downtown property owner and proprietor of several long-time Downtown businesses. Sales tax eats discretionary money, and most of the businesses Downtown are dependent on discretionary money. But it’s the same for businesses all over town, really – people will even put off maintenance on their cars and homes when they are pinched for money. They cut their budget all over, not by choice, but because they have less money to spend.

I’d guess, like myself, the first thing most people cut from their budget is restaurants. If not altogether, they eat out less and they eat at cheaper places. One friend of mine told me he will quit eating at sit down restaurants in favor of “restaurants with a tip jar”. At home the family cuts the clothing budget and starts shopping at discount grocery stores. At a time like this, there’s no way small local businesses can compete with the prices at the big chains or online stores.

Of course, this hurts lower income people the most – restaurant workers, retail workers, service workers. They have to make corresponding cuts in their budget. It’s like a virus, causing a downward spiral for the economy.

I believe in supporting your business community, at large. Pricey Downtown businesses should not be asking for charity, they should be joining the community in formal opposition to the sales tax increase measure. I’d like to see the DCBA and the Chico Chamber make a public statement against this bad measure. Interim Chamber CEO Mark Chrisman has said he is afraid a sales tax increase would be bad for local business, but when I contacted him asking if they Chamber would oppose the measure he did not respond.

If you are, or you know, a local business owner or member of the DCBA or Chamber, you should oppose or ask your friends to oppose the measure. Furthermore, you should ask them to convince their fellow members to get a formal statement of opposition out of these organizations. The business community has a lot of pull with council, they donate a lot of money at election time and have a lot of customer clout. Let your business community know, this measure hurts you, and what hurts you, hurts them.

Housing market is tanking, rent is going up – what’s the city of Chico doing? Making it worse.

22 Jul

Yep, the housing market is crashing, and rent is going up. Why? Well, here in Chico, I believe the cause is overbuilding. Walk with me, talk with me.

The city has been permitting skads of new housing, despite concerns about water, traffic, and the general quality of life. That’s their answer to demands for “affordable housing”, but no, it’s not affordable, housing is getting more expensive as we speak.

How does that happen? Well, it’s that overused mantra – if you build it they will come. More housing attracts more people. People from cities where the cost is a lot higher, and oftentimes the quality of living has sunk to unimaginable lows. So they come here with their fistful of cash and bully down other buyers. I’ve seen it.

Another reason is that alot of those people are investors, not families in desperate need of housing. Right away the investor involvement drives up demand and the price. They have the money to offer more than the average family, and they snap up new housing before it is even built. I don’t have an exact figure, but I know a lot of the houses in that new Fogarty subdivision were bought new as rentals by investors.

Who could forget the scam that significantly raised the price of housing in Chico FOREVER. Developer Tony Symmes concocted a plot with cronies to recruit “straw buyers” to buy his houses at way more than market value. On my street, a group of local investors bought an old lady’s back yard and put in seven houses, which they all immediately bought for themselves, at outrageous prices – the cheapest little house at the front went for almost $700,000. But it was all just on paper, money never changed hands, they were the investors. Then they sold the houses, using the straw prices they’d invented – one 4 bedroom McMansion sold in 2020 for $743,000, with a current estimated value at over $800,000.

Once the price of housing goes up like that, it’s never going to go down to reason again. Take a look at the prices on Zillow, I was shocked. See, council can approve the permits, but they have nothing to say about the prices. The prices are set by the market, and the market is a screaming horde out of the Bay Area. That’s what you get when you permit a Build Fest like we got now.

Have we all really forgotten the recession that fell in 2008? I remember earlier, then-council member Dan Nguyen-tan, telling me things were great – interest rates were down, he said, so people could afford more expensive houses. I remember looking at that guy with new eyes – what an idiot, how do people like him get into positions of trust? Why would you want people to buy more expensive houses, just because the interest rate was low? Because that raises not only the cost of housing, but the amount of property taxes on those homes. Forever.

And then we found out, it was VARIABLE. And they were letting people buy with no down and no payments for a year. Who would not have seen what was coming on the heels of a frenzy like that?

I had heard about foreclosure, I’d seen pictures of whole sections of Detroit, houses sitting empty and in decay, old faded For Sale signs on the dead lawns. But I’d never seen it for myself. It was shocking, sign after sign along the streets all over Chico. Red Bluff was really bad, I saw a neighborhood in which most of the houses had Foreclosure signs in front. Chico had never seen anything like it, historically, foreclosures were rare. Now they are a fact of life in Chico. We’ve way over built our housing market, and that doesn’t mean, we’ve been “housing” anybody, and housing has certainly not become more affordable.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure, rent follows the housing market – rents are also shocking these days.

Furthermore, utility rates have also gone up steadily, without any reason except the utility companies want more money. PG&E burns down a town due to lack of maintenance on a 12 cent part, and use it as an excuse to raise rates. The CPUC wrings their hands and approves rate increase after rate increase, amid stories of bribery and scandal among board members. Who you gonna call? Well, when CPUC president Michael Peavey was caught red-handed accepting bribes from utility companies, then California Attorney General Kamala Harris threw her apron over her head and said the statute of limitations had run out.

Instead of using their collective might to mount a legal protest of the rate hikes, the city of Chico takes advantage of high utility rates, imposing franchise fees on PG&E and Comcast, and a 5% Utility Users Tax on your PG&E, Cal Water, and landline bill. But have they pressured any of these companies to update their infrastructure in your neighborhood? You might have seen the maps the city consultant made, showing which neighborhoods have high fire danger – most of them! But nobody asks, how old are the transformers and electric lines?

And how’s your internet/cellphone service? Does your Cal Water taste like PV Pool? How does paying a chump fee to the city of Chico affect the quality of any of these services aside from raising the price?

City of Chico is in trouble because of poor decisions based on employee wants instead of taxpayer needs. You see them out cleaning the bum camps they created because they don’t want you to think about what they’re NOT doing. They want you to say, “hurray Staff, thanks so much for doing the job you already get well-paid for!” And pass their sales tax increase. Don’t be a dupe, your kids are smarter than that.

American Rescue Plan included a bail out of the pension system – unfortunately, the bail out system needs a bail out!

19 Jul

Well, you think you know it’s bad, and then you find out, it’s badder than you think. Very, very badder.

First I read the city’s comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR). I found out, the pension deficit figure that comes up in conversations is only a fraction of what the city actually owes – that made me mad. Worse, I saw what the city pays out monthly in payroll contributions, and that made me sick. How can we funnel hundreds of millions of dollars a year into a failing system?

And then Dude sent me this article from Zero Hedge, and little rockets starting flying out of my ears.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/america-just-bailed-out-bunch-pensions-taxpayers-expense

Yes, there it is – America just bailed out the pensions.

“Buried deep in the American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Biden in March 2021 was a provision mandating the government to bail out ailing multiemployer pension plans.”

I knew the ARP was going to be full of pork barrel, so this does not surprise me. Like the author says, this act was jammed through quickly under cover of COVID, I’m going to guess most legislators never read it in full, not even their staffers knew what was in it. Business as usual in Washington, as well as Sacramento.

Well, here’s something I never even guesstulated – there’s a national agency tasked with bailing out the pension funds – the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. But here’s no surprise – they’re in trouble too!

 “The 25 largest U.S. public pensions face trillions in unfunded liabilities. If Americans took the time to stand back and look at the bigger picture they will see the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) an independent agency of the United States government responsible for acting as the nation’s “safety net” for failed pensions is also in trouble. When a pension fails this agency is expected to take control of its assets and dole them out to its pensioners in the coming years. The ugly truth is the PBGC is not a rock but is in need of its own bailout. “

Here’s another truth: the taxpayers pay the lion’s share of the pensions, and always have. We pay more than half the payroll amount, and we pay ALL OF THE DEFICIT. It is time for the employees to fess up and pay more, a lot more.

Or the reality is going to be this: “People are often led to believe pensions are a promise carved in stone, however, when the money is not there pensions and promises will be broken so pensioners should prepare for the pain. This is especially true in the public sector which has a history of granting pensions that are unheard of in the private sector. “

 

I think the time has come for the city of Chico to tell Judge England where he can shove it and start ignoring his insane orders. Can we get a competency hearing for a judge?

17 Jul

Driving in from Paradise the other day I noticed the Chico city limits sign has been updated to reflect the latest census figures – Chico’s new population is just over 111,000 people. As I predicted, that falls far short of the 120,000+ claimed by Mark Orme when he was crying about Chico being overwhelmed by the Camp Fire and other wildfires. I’ll guess his claims about the sewer being overwhelmed – while the city works director admitted it was at just over half capacity – were also false. Orme tried to blame the condition of our streets on the wildfire refugees – anybody who’s lived in Chico more than five years knows that is also a fib.

We also know, it wasn’t the refugees who added 11,000 to our total population – while some former Paradise residents ended up living in Chico, for now, what is really bringing new people to town is development. Look around you – while the streets in your old neighborhood are crumbling, the city of Chico is using grants and RDA money to put new streets in new subdivisions. Grants require matching fund and the RDA is a loan at 3%, so they will be using your tax money to make the match and then pay $3 for every RDA dollar they use.

This is an old, tired pattern in Chico – build new, because it brings in new money – state grant funding, builder fees (which council has just raised again) and new, enhanced property taxes. And of course, the added population brings in more sales tax and utility tax. Win Win Win! for city staff, who can use all that unrestricted money to pay their pensions.

But it’s a Lose Lose Lose for our town – they don’t spend the money as they should, and as our population increases, our infrastructure begins to fail. And somehow, despite all their promises of “affordable housing,” living in Chico just keeps getting more expensive.

Our town and council have fallen on a practice of taking whatever funding wherever they can get it, and sometimes it costs more than it’s worth. A “conservative” led council signed the Shelter Crisis Designation in 2018 for roughly $4 million. Where the hell did that money go? You see where it got us, our town is a loony bin. But our entire council, conservatives and liberals, signed to extend the SCD last year, having got our town into a finger trap of a lawsuit.

Ever tried one of these? City of Chico Council and Staff have put us all in this trap.

Don’t read the paper, or watch the news – look at the social media site “Butte County Fires, Accidents and Crimes” on Facebook. When I checked yesterday, I immediately saw a report of a stolen vehicle and another of a fire involving four transient tents at Ninth and Cedar. Right in the middle of the afternoon, on a 3-digit day.

Hey, did you know, you can cook a small batch of meth on a camp stove? With ingredients available at any drugstore. I’m just saying.

Since the opening of the Pallet Shelters at the fairgrounds, I’ve seen reports of thefts from nearby businesses, multiple overdoses requiring emergency service, and yeah, bum fights, including battery of a staff member. How could anybody not have seen that coming? You put a few hundred people into that kind of crowding, in the bleaching sun with no trees or grass, give them three bathrooms, relax the rules for stuff like dogs, drugs and stolen merchandise – tell them, oh no, we won’t kick you out if you break the rules! What the hell would anybody expect?

All conscious and willful decisions made by our council, advised directly by staff, that have had an incredible and easily foreseen negative effect on our “quality of life”.

Staff has admitted that all of our shelters are nearing their physical limits, and that we will have to stand by while the bums take over our parks, waterways and public spaces. All because the city signed the SCD. As long as we are in that finger trap, our city management has admitted, an increasing amount of the General Fund will go toward the shelters and the clean-up of the parks, not to mention the drug and crime problems that are exacerbated with the transfers from the jails and the mental hospitals.

Here’s my solution – ignore Judge England’s orders. Enforce the laws, rout the campers, and here’s a twist – arrest them! Jail is a form of shelter, and I think any moron could make an argument that even an overcrowded jail with drug treatment and regular meals is more humane than a filthy camp on an open toilet formerly known as a creek.

So, Man UP Chico City Council. Reach down between your legs, and find your BALLS!

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